Two Headed Boy
by Insomniac Owl
Summary: They put him in an asylum, and they ran tests. They drained away his sanity and control with screaming voices, and when they let him go, all he wanted was freedom. [Sasuke centric]


**Two-Headed Boy**

_by Insomniac Owl_

-

Life didn't get any better than this.

No… watching the slim edge of a kunai slide into his skin, the blood flow out so easily, he knew. This was, after all, _proof_! Proof of life, that he existed. His head was so cluttered, so god-damned full of things, of thoughts (some good, some bad, some oh-so-very disturbing he could hardly bear to think them) that he could not be any other way of course, but this helped with that as well. It was as if his thoughts were contained within his blood, and when they were let out, allowed to flow freely… _he_ was free too.

And, watching his blood pool in the ceramic bowl of his bathroom sink, he was struck with how very beautiful it was. This life, this proof of existence…

It was bliss.

**o**

They came to take him shortly after Kakashi discovered him curled up on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own blood. He hadn't meant to bleed so much, but there were so many thoughts, all pressing for attention that he just couldn't _stand_ it anymore! He dug the kunai into his arm, deeper (he thinks now, with a slight smile, a smirk) than he'd ever cut before. And all his thoughts, so pressing, so urgent, flew from him like caught doves now freed. And that _life_…

As he faded into unconsciousness, he was so enraptured by it. When he woke up, it was dried on his arms, his hands and feet where he supposed he'd stepped in it (though he never recalled standing up). The men and (one) woman had told him that he would be alright, that he would be taken care of at this place he was going. They would help him get over his problem.

He remembers clutching their arms, nearly crying with laughter, and thanking them. And then he doesn't remember much of anything.

When he woke up, there was nothing but white. White walls, sheets, clothing… It was the clothing that bothered him the most. The clothes he wore were made of coarse white cotton, and they itched. He lay there for quite a long time, staring at the ceiling. He never remembered anything fascinating him with such a consuming attention before, besides that beautiful crimson red of life. The ceiling wasn't particularly remarkable, but it was sturdy, strong. And it was white.

When he stared at the ceiling, it had the same effect as letting his thoughts go through his wrists, and he liked that. He hardly remembered the times that day that people came in, watching him, scribbling hasty notes on yellow paper.

It must have been a week (he never could keep track of time while he was in that place, though now he finds he can estimate the time with a somewhat unnerving accuracy) before anything happened. During that time, he was vaguely aware of the men and (one) woman whispering that there didn't seem to be anything exactly _wrong_ with him (he remembers being vaguely indignant at that).

They whispered that yes, he stared at the ceiling quite a lot, but the tests they'd run hadn't produced any signs at all of mental illness.

It was the next day they moved him.

This room was dark, very dark. Not at all like the white room he'd been in previously. There was no light - none whatsoever. As they led him inside, left him there (and later, he discovered, locked the door) all he remembers thinking was that he should be glad he didn't have to stare at that white ceiling all day long.

It was the day they moved him that he'd stolen a knife.

It was long, thin, and very _very_ sharp. It was perfect. And in that darkness he grew to hate passionately (so much so that afterward, he could never stand to sleep without a light on) it was bliss.

It was exactly seven seconds after he'd placed the blade to his wrist and pressed that they came rushing in, all at once and with high panicked voices that made them sound very much like seagulls. The knife (which he suspected was actually a surgical implement, and not a knife at all) they ripped from his hands, and ushered him quite hurriedly back into his old room.

Now they didn't whisper that nothing was wrong with him. Now they ran tests, test after test after test until they occupied his head as his thoughts had. They crowded and pushed one another, scurrying about and screaming for attention. Mixed in with them was the constant worry of the next one, and the results they always read to him, which always made him out to be some sort of psycho-path, a possessor of two heads. If the men and (one) woman had paid attention to anything other than their numbers, they would have realized that these tests were the worst thing they could have done to him.

He knew this of course, but it seemed as if one test they'd given him (he suspected the one where they shocked him with electricity until his limbs ached with fire and he was screaming long after) he couldn't form words. His mind was filled, with no outlet. There was no kunai, not even a white ceiling.

They had moved him to a room with a blue ceiling, just after his first return to the dark one.

He was isolated in that dark room for long stretches at a time, with (he suspected) the men and (one) women watching from somewhere. Hidden cameras. That idea fascinated him for only the second visit however, when the discovery of one high in the right corner only caused his anxiety to worsen. For in that room, it was as if the entire place were full of thoughts, problems, and worries over the tests he'd taken and was going to take. When he was there with them they swarmed about him, crawling into his ears like filthy worms where they rested, content to take up space in his brain and scream.

Often, he screamed with them, unable to bear their presence. He looked toward the hidden camera, dug his fingers into his scalp, and simply screamed.

Afterward, when they led him shaking from the darkness, the men and (one) woman always wore pale expressions of fright on their faces.

Returning to his blue-ceiling room, he often kept screaming, in desperate hopes that the thoughts would leave if he did. It wasn't that they were bad thoughts (though some of them were, some of them were so blood-chillingly _awful_ that they gave him nightmares) the thoughts were simply too many in number. When they screamed - all of them together since they seemed unable to do it any other way - it was simply too much to bear. When everything clamored for his attention at once, he felt as if his head would burst from the pressure.

**o**

He was never quite sure when they finally let him go.

The forms they had him sign (in a neat, disturbingly precise hand x _Uchiha Sasuke _) claimed he had been in that place for over three years, but he didn't believe that.

When he reached his apartment (his mind was strangely clear when he did this, uncluttered, unoccupied, and perhaps that was why) he hesitantly reached for a knife.

_(No, don't do this, not after all that time!)_

And as he slid the blade across his wrist, all those thoughts the men and (one) woman had purged came flooding back. He smiled. Laughed. Slid the blade again.

This was freedom.

This was _bliss_.

**finis**


End file.
